Hollywood has a habit of stretching novels out across multiple movies as a way of maximizing investments by keeping franchise devotees hooked for as long as possible. Rarely has splitting a book into multiple films ever benefited the story, with results ranging from ho-hum, filler-filled two-parters (Deathly Hallows, Mockingjay) to full-blown disasters like The Hobbit Trilogy. Denis Villeneuve’s movies almost have the opposite problem, with so much story to tell that, even with a combined five-and-a-half-hour run time, it still doesn’t quite feel like enough. With so many big ideas and so much essential context, it’s easy to see why Dune was long considered unfilmable. It may not manage to pack in every ounce of nuance and world-building from Frank Herbert's novel, but it’s hard to imagine a more satisfying adaptation of the story than Dune: Part 2.
At two hours and 46 minutes, it does a remarkable job at telling the story of Paul Atreides' rise from unwanted outsider to messianic leader of an intergalactic holy war. Though not without the occasional pacing issue - frequent time dilations create moments of confusion when the plot jumps ahead unexpectedly - it manages to balance important character development, evolving interpersonal and geopolitical dynamics, and the deep mythos of the Dune universe remarkably well. While Dune gave context to the world and put all the major players on the board, Part Two is a more focused, directed story about Paul Atreides ascending, and the battle between a man and his destiny.
No time has been lost between the end of Dune and the beginning of Part Two, where we find Paul and Jessica being taken in as refugees by the Fremen. Javiar Bardem, playing chieftain Stilgar, is an immediate standout here. He, like many of the returning cast, including Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, and Dave Bautista, are given greatly expanded roles and the screen time necessary to bring life to the dead, dry world of Arakkis. Zendaya, whose awkward angsty take on MJ nไever quite landed for me in the Spider-Man series, is perfectly believable as the Fedaykin warrior Chani, who balances her infatuation with and trepidation towards Paul expertly. Part Two is a bigger, more bombastic movie than the first, with higher stakes and grimmer fates, but it’s also more grounded by its characters and relationships.
I’ll avoid a cliche by claiming Arrakis itself is a character in this story, but I will give that credit to Hans Zimmer's score. The composer won his first Academy Award in nearly 20 years for his work on Dune, and he has entirely outdone himself for this sequel. This movie has at least two of the most incredible, theater-shaking battle scenes I’ve ever seen, and even so the score still completely dominates the entire film. Some composers aim to be invisible, subtly enhancing the on-screen action by melodically directing your emotions. Zimmer’s score feels like the main course, the $200 million spent on exploding spice harvesters and strafing ornithopters merely there to support the power of Zimmer’s score. I urge you to experience Dune: Part Two in a Dolby Theater, even if you have to bring earplugs.
Together both halves of Du൩ne map onto Campbell’s structure of the Hero’s journey, but as Part One had so much stage-setting, the bulk of that journey happens across Part Two. Herbert wrote the novel this way knowingly, referring to it as “high camp”, written as a sort of critique of Campbell’s monomyth. This is a boon for Hollywood-styl🍌e storytelling, which so often leverages archetypal stories and act-based structuring to tell stories in a way that’s familiar and easy to digest. Dune: Part 2 gets to play in the subversion of the Hero’s journey while adhering to the tried-and-true, audience-tested structure that big studios love. A win/win for the popcorn audience and students of storytelling alike.
Villeneuve manages to packag🍌e Dune’s story in a way that complements the pacing and urgency of a film, too. Rather than the passive political subterfuge of something like Game of Thrones, where power players work from the shadows as if moving pieces on a chessboard, the politics of Arrakis are more immediate and violent. Just as House Atreides was utterly demolished in a matter of minutes in Part One, Villeneuve consistently finds ways to condense the most pivotal moments of Part Two into the shortest amount of time without sacrificing their impact.
While the writing can occasionally feel overly expository and characters are often stating their exact intentions, feelings, and desires plainly and unambiguously, every moment feels designed to serve the greater arc of the story. There isn💙’t a wasted frame in the film, which is a remarkable feat for a nearly ♊three-hour movie.
The politics of Dune are reactionary - the knee-jerk decisions of figures desperate to maintain power in a dangerous and chaotic world - but the culture is where the depths of this universe lie. Part Two is an explorat🍸ion of the Fremen, the natives of Arrakis, who have a variety of community structures, religious sects, and customs, but we also spend more time learning about the bloodthirsty Harkonnen society, and the machinations of the Bene Gesserit. Between desert skirmishes, ra൲ids on mining outposts, and the love affair developing between Paul and Chani, the bulk of the film is dedicated to unspooling the complexities of Arraki society so that we might better appreciate the choices and fates of its people, which pays off beautifully.
I anticipate some amount of discourse around Paul as a White Savior. Whether the film (and the novel) fall prey to this problematic trope will depend on your reading of Herbert’s in🎃tentions, and your interpretation of the ending - which is a discuss𓃲ion best saved for later. The film is certainly aware that it’s playing in that space. On multiple occasions, Paul states that he is not a messiah and that the Fremen deserve to liberate themselves.
The film is undoubtedly a critique of Western Imperialism and the exploitation and manipulation of indigenous peoples. Context matters ver꧃y much here. It’s still, at least outwardly, the story of a white man learning the ways of the👍 native people, becoming their leader, and freeing them from their plight. Paul is the POV character here, and it is ultimately through his eyes that we experience the entirety of the story.
It isn’t possible to adapt a book into a film without losing something in translation, but Dune: Part Two succeeds in maintaining the most important qualities of the book, while rendering the most visually compelling version of Arakkis to date. Dune joins Avatar at the peak of mainstream subversive cinema. There’s never been a better ti⛎me for movie fans that love CGI explosions and hate America.
